Best concerts of 2011

Caption1. Le Butcherettes at Lollapalooza, Aug. 5

Teri Gender Bender, aka Teresa Suarez, wears a red-stained butcher's smock and flings her high-heels into the crowd, the better to stomp, twirl, somersault and stage-dive, while working her three-piece garage-punk band to exhaustion. She assumes a new personality every few lines, her voice...

Teri Gender Bender, aka Teresa Suarez, wears a red-stained butcher's smock and flings her high-heels into the crowd, the better to stomp, twirl, somersault and stage-dive, while working her three-piece garage-punk band to exhaustion. She assumes a new personality every few lines, her voice...

It's a stifling summer night in the city, but the 69-year-old legend works up a James Brown-worthy sweat while throwing himself into 37 songs for nearly three hours with barely a pause. McCartney turns the soul ballad "Maybe I'm Amazed" into a towering moment, pushing his voice higher and...

It's a stifling summer night in the city, but the 69-year-old legend works up a James Brown-worthy sweat while throwing himself into 37 songs for nearly three hours with barely a pause. McCartney turns the soul ballad "Maybe I'm Amazed" into a towering moment, pushing his voice higher and...

There is smooth and then there's Raphael Saadiq, a man who looks like he gets out of bed with the crease in his slacks razor-sharp. Like Stevie Wonder, he exudes an almost child-like enthusiasm for music, delighting in every slip of the hip, every falsetto note done just right. He surveys his...

There is smooth and then there's Raphael Saadiq, a man who looks like he gets out of bed with the crease in his slacks razor-sharp. Like Stevie Wonder, he exudes an almost child-like enthusiasm for music, delighting in every slip of the hip, every falsetto note done just right. He surveys his...

Caption4. Tune-Yards, July 15 at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park

Can a ukulele rock? When Tune-Yards' Merrill Garbus is playing one it can. With a bassist and horn section fleshing out her tunes, Garbus thrashes her uke, pounds on a drum, and sings as though she's trying to split the clouds. She shifts between soulful trills and warrior cries in the span of...

Can a ukulele rock? When Tune-Yards' Merrill Garbus is playing one it can. With a bassist and horn section fleshing out her tunes, Garbus thrashes her uke, pounds on a drum, and sings as though she's trying to split the clouds. She shifts between soulful trills and warrior cries in the span of...

The "Watch the Throne" album suffered from too much self-satisfied materialism and not enough soul, but the hip-hop kingpins make amends with a show stuffed with high points. Though they clearly respect each other's accomplishments, the dynamic is telling: Jay-Z as the self-confident older...

The "Watch the Throne" album suffered from too much self-satisfied materialism and not enough soul, but the hip-hop kingpins make amends with a show stuffed with high points. Though they clearly respect each other's accomplishments, the dynamic is telling: Jay-Z as the self-confident older...